


Afterglow

by Nyssa



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-25
Updated: 2010-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-12 04:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A couple of cute cadets lying around talking.  Set in the late '60s during the guys' academy days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterglow

He woke gradually, after perhaps an hour's nap, to warm sunlight teasing his face through the curtains and warmer flesh pressed to his back. He squinted in the light and yawned expansively. It was the middle of the afternoon, but he felt deliciously lazy.

He felt movement behind him and turned over. His eyes widened. The sun had turned his companion's blond hair to shining gold. It literally glistened. Starsky reached out a hand and touched it, carefully, as though it were a rare and precious artifact; the Mona Lisa, maybe, or a ball autographed by Mickey Mantle.

"You got beautiful hair," he said. "You know that?"

Hutchinson looked at him sideways, as though the remark were of doubtful veracity, or at best irrelevant. "Sleep well?" he asked.

"Yeah." Starsky stretched a bit. "I'm always sleepy after. Put my all into it, y'know."

He saw Hutchinson smile. "I believe that, I really do."

Starsky snuggled closer and rested an arm across Hutchinson's middle. "Ah, Hutch," he sighed, using the shortened form of the name. It was the way he'd thought of Hutchinson since the day they met. The guy's whole last name took too long to say, and Ken sounded too -- well, plastic. Like a doll, or a surfer. Despite his looks, this guy was real.

Starsky closed his eyes. "You do this much?" he asked, casually.

Hutchinson didn't reply immediately, so Starsky raised his head and looked at him. He was staring up at the ceiling, a faraway expression in his eyes. Starsky thought he could feel muscles tensing beneath the fair skin.

After a moment's silence he said, "You don't want to talk about it. Okay, I got it." He withdrew his arm from Hutchinson's waist, and moved slightly away from him.

Hutchinson turned his head suddenly, as though startled back to the present. "No," he said. "I don't mind talking about it." He paused. "I trust you, I guess."

Starsky gave him a reassuring little punch in the arm. "Hey, if I rat on you, I rat on me. Right?"

Hutchinson said nothing for a moment, and then, "I don't do it much. Just sometimes."

Starsky grinned. "When the opportunity's too good to miss, huh?"

Hutchinson rolled his eyes, but a smile tugged at his lips. "Cocky son of a bitch, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am." It was hard not to be cocky when you'd just made it with a guy who looked like one of those Greek statues in the museum you'd been dragged to on field trips in junior high.

After a moment he asked, "When'd you start?"

"College," Hutchinson said briefly.

"Oh, you went to college, huh?" Starsky propped himself on one elbow and rested his chin in his hand. From that angle he had a better view of Hutchinson's pretty eyes.

Hutchinson glanced up at him, almost defensively, Starsky thought. "Yeah."

"You got a degree in somethin'?"

Hutchinson shook his head. "I dropped out. Do you always talk this much in bed?"

Starsky shrugged. "I'm interested."

"You're nosy."

"Yeah. I'm gonna be a good cop. Interrogate the hell outta those suckers."

Hutchinson laughed at that, a real laugh, and Starsky smiled. "There we go," he said, in teasing tones, and tapped the end of Hutchinson's nose playfully. "There we go. Laugh and the world laughs with ya."

Hutchinson stopped laughing, but he kept smiling. The seriousness had gone from his eyes. He took Starsky's hand and squeezed it in a friendly way. "When did you start, then?"

"In the army," Starsky said. He liked the way Hutchinson held his hand. He squeezed back. "I wanted to before that, but -- I dunno. I was scared, I guess."

"How long were you in?"

"Two years. Just got out last fall."

"See any action?"

"I just told you."

This time Hutchinson punched _him_ in the arm. " _Military_ action," he said.

"Oh." Starsky could feel the grin trying to break through. "Yeah, some. It's a jungle over there."

Hutchinson didn't laugh. "I'll bet you were glad to get home."

Starsky nodded, and changed the subject. "Why'd you drop out of college? That's kind of a dumb thing to do, ain't it?"

Hutchinson gave him an affronted look. "Well, maybe I'm just dumb, then."

"No, you're not." Starsky shook his head decisively. "I've seen enough to know that. You got brains _and_ beauty, pal."

Hutchinson said nothing, and looked away.

"And if you ain't in college, you ain't got a deferment, right? Your number might come up."

Hutchinson turned his head and looked him in the eye. "If it does, I'll go. I've got no problem with that. I won't ask my dad to get me out, or -- " He broke off abruptly.

Starsky waited, but apparently no more information was forthcoming. He nodded slowly. "Okay. You do what you gotta do." _Don't go, Blondie. You're too good for the goddamn military-industrial complex to chew up and spit out_. Aloud he said, "But I think you'll make a hell of a cop, if you stick around."

Hutchinson blinked. "How do you know? You've only been at the academy a month, same as I have. What do you know about being a cop?"

Starsky lay back, folding his arms behind his head. "I just got a feeling, that's all. I think you're the type. You got _ideals_."

The astonished look on Hutchinson's face amused him. "Where the hell are you getting all this from? All you know about me is the size of my dick."

Starsky almost choked laughing. "And I appreciate very much your sharing that fact with me."

Hutchinson shook his head slowly, as though he couldn't decide how irritated to be. Finally he said, "Well, what about you? Don't you have any ideals?"

"Nah," Starsky said, closing his eyes. "I just thought I'd like bustin' heads, clubbin' protestors, takin' kickbacks from the mob -- you know."

Hutchinson didn't say anything, and after a moment Starsky opened his eyes. The guy was staring at him with the widest, most delighted grin Starsky had yet seen him wear.

"You're crazy, aren't you?" Hutchinson said. "You're warped, buddy."

Starsky knew that was his cue to make some other wiseass remark, but he couldn't think of a thing. God, what a beautiful smile. He stared at it, dumbstruck.

"Uh -- " he began, weakly.

Hutchinson didn't seem to notice his befuddlement. He gave Starsky a fond slap on the shoulder, threw the covers back, and got smoothly to his feet.

Starsky blinked, his eyes sliding down Hutchinson's long back to his neat little ass. He'd observed it covertly for a month now, had had his hands on it -- finally! -- an hour ago, but he wasn't tired of it. Not by any manner of means.

"Where, uh" -- he swallowed and tried again -- "where ya goin'? Got an urgent appointment or something?"

"Gotta get home." Hutchinson turned in a circle, looking slowly around the room. "Where are my shorts?" To Starsky's disappointment, he spotted them immediately and quickly slid them on. "I have to feed my plants."

"Plants?" Starsky wondered if he'd heard correctly. "You feed plants?"

"Well, it's Sunday." Hutchinson turned to him with the intense gaze of one explaining a passionate interest to the uninitiated. "They get fed twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays. Except for the philodendron, which can get by with only one feeding a week. I use a new organic compound for it, and it's really working, it's growing like a weed. So to speak. I take it out to the balcony every day for the sunlight, and play records for it. Coltrane, mostly. You can always tell when plants are thriving, and buddy, it's thriving."

"Terrific," Starsky said, faintly. His mother had given him an African violet once, but he'd forgotten to water it.

Hutchinson zipped his fly and sat down on the edge of the bed, socks in hand. Starsky sat up, scooted closer to him, and ran a finger down his back, tracing the ridge of his spine.

"We gonna do this again?" he asked.

The animated expression faded from Hutchinson's eyes. He regarded Starsky seriously. "You want to?"

Starsky affected a casual air. "Sure. I mean, why not, you know? Long as we keep it quiet." _Please, please, please_...

Hutchinson looked away from him and said nothing for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. "I like you," he said. "I don't want to like a guy as much as I like you."

 _Oh baby_ , Starsky thought. He felt ridiculously touched. "That's -- that's swell," he said, idiotically. "I mean, I'm glad you like me. I like you, too."

"I don't want it to turn into -- you know, some big romance or something."

"No," Starsky said. " 'Course not."

"I've done that before," Hutchinson said, in tight, controlled tones. "It stunk."

"Yeah, yeah," Starsky said hastily. "Fucks everything up when that happens."

"But maybe..." Hutchinson hesitated, and then shrugged. "If we keep it under control, if we're careful -- "

"Yeah, yeah, we'll be careful, we'll be _real_ careful, hell, you want careful, you got it." He forced himself to close his mouth, to shut off the happy babble. He felt like singing. Instead he gave Hutchinson a quick squeeze around the waist.

Hutchinson put a hand on the back of Starsky's neck, leaned in, and kissed his lips. It wasn't a deep, passionate kiss, and it lasted only a few seconds. But it was the first one. They'd been too busy for kissing before, too hurried, too focused on the end result. But Starsky liked kissing very much. He closed his eyes, barely touched the tip of Hutchinson's soft tongue with his, and grimly refused to allow himself to push the guy back down on the bed and crawl all over him.

Hutchinson drew back, releasing him. His face was flushed and his eyes didn't meet Starsky's. He said softly, as though to himself, "I just don't want it to get too..."

He didn't finish the sentence, and Starsky said, as steadily as he could manage, "Nah, it won't. We won't let it. We're buddies, right?" He gave Hutchinson a playful shove.

Hutchinson looked up at that, and smiled. "Right." He paused, then suddenly bent to put his socks on. "I'd better go, I've got things to do."

Starsky lay back and watched him button his shirt and slide into his shoes. "Yeah," he said. "The philadelphia and everything."

Hutchinson glanced up at him, lips quirked in amusement. "Philodendron."

"Yeah."

"It's from the Greek. It means 'love tree.'"

Starsky snickered.

Hutchinson picked up his jacket. "Well," he said, and wavered a moment. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow, I guess. On the firing range."

There was a note in his voice that made Starsky cock his head curiously. "You nervous about that?"

"No. Well, maybe a little."

"You never shot before?"

"Yeah, I have. Not pistols, though. Just deer rifles."

Starsky made a dismissive gesture. "You can handle one, you can handle the other. It's not hard."

"I guess not."

"If you need any help, I can give you lessons. You know, we can go somewhere private and target-shoot."

Hutchinson looked surprised. "Okay. Thanks."

"And -- we can go anywhere else private that you want, too."

Hutchinson smiled at him. "Okay. My room's private."

Starsky grinned. "Full of plants, ain't it?"

"Not the bed," Hutchinson said, patted him on the knee, and left. Starsky heard the apartment door shut quietly behind him.

He lay for a while, on his back, smiling at the ceiling. He wasn't worried about the firing range, or about anything else. He didn't overanalyze things. That was a waste of time. You took things as they came, and tackled problems when they arose, not before. He didn't know where Hutchinson had gotten his skittishness about a "big romance," but Starsky didn't share it. He'd have moved in with the guy tomorrow.

He got up eventually, got dressed, cleared away the beer cans he and Hutchinson had left on the coffee table, and ate a couple of handfuls of potato chips out of the bag in the cupboard. He dug out the phone book, made a call, and discovered that the gift shop on the corner of Beacon and Monterey was open on Sundays.

He found his keys and went out the door whistling, to buy Hutchinson an African violet.


End file.
